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AASHE Bulletin – December 18th edition

Season’s greetings! The AASHE Bulletin will be on hiatus Dec. 25 and Jan. 1, returning to your inbox on Jan. 8. Also, AASHE offices will be closed from Dec. 24 through Jan. 1. From all of us here at AASHE, we wish you a safe and peaceful holiday and happy new year!

(Australia) In response to feedback from students, staff and stakeholders who wanted to see the university increase its investment in renewable energy, the university recently signed a contract to purchase wind, solar and hydroelectric energy that will cover 100 percent of the university’s electricity needs across its Newcastle and Central Coast campuses.

After recently acquiring the rights to a 10,000-acre farm in eastern North Carolina, the university began a two-year pilot program on 300 acres of the land. University researchers aim to identify the best ways to restore the former farm fields to their original wetland state and measure and verify how much carbon the land’s saturated peat soil can store. If enough carbon credits can be generated at a cost-effective rate, production will then expand to the other 9,700 acres.

The decommissioned Blackhawk Generating Station is projected to open in fall 2019 as a 120,000-square-foot student recreation center and student union. One of the aims of the renovation project is to showcase sustainable redesign of the historic building.

Mike Kensler, director of the Office of Sustainability at Auburn University, joined the College Sustainability Summit Series to talk about the university’s Spirit of Sustainability Awards that recognize individual students, groups, faculty, staff and/or alumni that exemplify the Auburn spirit by making significant contributions towards sustainability on campus.

The Impact of Real Food: 8 Ways Institutional Procurement is Building a Real Food Economy is a report from Real Food Challenge that is based on research focused on vendors who sell to colleges and universities that have signed the Real Food Campus Commitment. The report identifies patterns in farm/vendor-to-institutional relationships that have a positive effect on the food supply chain.